Understanding Contemporary Issues in Higher Education

This insightful book offers a wide-ranging collection of lively discussions on contemporary issues, policies and practices in higher education. Bartram integrates contributions from experienced academics, teachers and students in a unique approach and structure, designed to enable students with both specific and wide-ranging interests in higher education to extend their understanding. Including discussion points, research tasks and suggestions on further reading in each chapter, Understanding Contemporary Issues in Higher Education discusses a range of topics, such as: - universities and the mental health 'crisis'; - knowledge, the state and the market; - the role of technology in teaching and academic celebrification; - disability, diversity and inclusive placement learning. Written specifically for Education Studies students, this book constitutes a timely addition to student-focused themed studies looking at aspects of higher education.

Brendan Bartram is Reader in Education at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

1. Higher Education: Change, churn and challenges 2. Changing Notions of Risk: The realities of studying in a post-92 university 3. Transitioning from Higher Education Stories from students in a STEM discipline 4. 'Academics online': Self-promotion, competition and celebrification 5. Higher standards and better-informed students or false promises and 'gaming' the system? Competition, metrics and the consumerism of students in UK higher education 6. Weaving through the Web: How students navigate information online in the twenty-first century 7. Academic Diversity and its Implications for Teaching and Learning 8. Let's keep it casual? Rising precarity and acts of resistance in UK universities 9. Meanings, Models and Muddles: Two tales of the pursuit of teaching excellence 10. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Higher Education 11. The Development of Knowledge in the Modern and Postmodern Universities 12. Disability, Diversity and Inclusive Placement Learning 13. How to Promote Real Equality in Higher Education 14. Higher Education: Contemplating the contradictions, complexities and challenges